Development and Evaluation of a Latex Agglutination Test for the Identification of Francisella tularensis Subspecies Pathogenic for Human

Francisella tularensis are highly infectious bacteria causing a zoonotic disease called tularemia. Identification of this bacterium is based on antigen detection or PCR. The paper presents a latex agglutination test (LAT) for rapid identification of clinically relevant F. tularensis subspecies. The test can be performed within three minutes with live or inactivated bacteria. The possibility to test the inactivated samples reduces the risk of laboratory acquired infection and allows performing the test under BSL-2 conditions

Microbiological diagnosis of respiratory infections caused by Legionella pneumophila

Pałeczki Legionella pneumophila są jednym z czynników wywołujących zapalenie płuc u ludzi, które ze względu na niecharakterystyczne objawy kliniczne trudno jest odróżnić od innych zakażeń dróg oddechowych. Obecnie diagnostyka legionelozy opiera się na badaniach fenotypowych (hodowla, poszukiwanie swoistych przeciwciał w surowicy ludzkiej, antygenu w próbkach materiału klinicznego) oraz badaniach genotypowych, takich jak metoda PCR (reakcja łańcuchowej polimerazy). W niniejszym artykule przedstawiono krótki opis metod diagnostycznych stosowanych w identyfikacji i zapobieganiu potencjalnym zakażeniom wywoływanym przez pałeczki L. pneumophila na terenie Polski.Legionella pneumophila is an important causative agent of pneumonia in humans which is difficult to diagnose because the signs and symptoms are nonspecific and do not distinguish Legionella infection from other common causes of pneumonia. Currently, the diagnosis of Legionnaires’ disease is based on phenotyping (culture, antibody detection in human sera, antigen detection in urine) and genotyping methods such as PCR (polymerase chain reaction). This review focuses on current diagnostic tests for surveillance of Legionella pneumophila infections in Poland

PRÄZISIONSMANIPULATOREN FÜR DIE LASERTECHNIK

A family of micropositioners for laser synthese studies and other experiments is presented. It consists of mirror holders of diameter of 150 and 330mm for positioning the mirrors with 5 degrees of freedom (3 linear and 2 rotational movements) and the cross stacked stages with 2 degrees of freedoom for posltioning the specimen in the laser materials processing. All devices have been designed and produced in the Institute of Design of Precise and Optical Instruments of the Warsaw University of Technology

Occurrence of Ureaplasma parvum and Ureaplasma urealyticum in Women with Cervical Dysplasia in Katowice, Poland

The aim of this study was to evaluate the occurrence of genital mycoplasmas, especially Ureaplasma parvum and Ureaplasma urealyticum, in women with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS), low grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) and high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL), compared to women with normal cytology living in Katowice, Poland. Two sterile swabs were used to obtain material from the posterior vaginal fornix of 143 women with squamous intraepithelial lesions and 39 healthy women: first for general bacteriology, second for detection of urogenital mycoplasmas using Mycoplasma IST2 kit. From each positive Mycoplasma IST2 culture DNA was isolated and PCR was performed for identification of U. parvum and U. urealyticum. Mycoplasma IST was positive in 34.1% cases. Urogenital mycoplasmas were demonstrated in women with HSIL significantly more often compared to women with LSIL, ASCUS, and with normal cytology. DNA of U. parvum was demonstrated in majority of Mycoplasma IST2-positive cases, U. urealyticum DNA-only in 9 (4.9%). Predominance of 3/14 serovars of U. parvum was demonstrated. U. urealyticum biovar 2 was present more often in women with squamous intraepithelial lesions

Three-Dimensional Morphology of a Coronal Prominence Cavity

We present a three-dimensional density model of coronal prominence cavities, and a morphological fit that has been tightly constrained by a uniquely well-observed cavity. Observations were obtained as part of an International Heliophysical Year campaign by instruments from a variety of space- and ground-based observatories, spanning wavelengths from radio to soft-X-ray to integrated white light. From these data it is clear that the prominence cavity is the limb manifestation of a longitudinally-extended polar-crown filament channel, and that the cavity is a region of low density relative to the surrounding corona. As a first step towards quantifying density and temperature from campaign spectroscopic data, we establish the three-dimensional morphology of the cavity. This is critical for taking line-of-sight projection effects into account, since cavities are not localized in the plane of the sky and the corona is optically thin. We have augmented a global coronal streamer model to include a tunnel-like cavity with elliptical cross-section and a Gaussian variation of height along the tunnel length. We have developed a semi-automated routine that fits ellipses to cross-sections of the cavity as it rotates past the solar limb, and have applied it to Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUVI) observations from the two Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft. This defines the morphological parameters of our model, from which we reproduce forward-modeled cavity observables. We find that cavity morphology and orientation, in combination with the viewpoints of the observing spacecraft, explains the observed variation in cavity visibility for the east vs. west limb

Distributions of Antibody Titers to Mycoplasma pneumoniae in Korean Children in 2000-2003

The aim of study was to describe Mycoplasma pneumoniae epidemics in a hospital-based population. Special attention was paid to the relationship between antibody titer to M. pneumoniae and sex, age, and atopy. During the eight 6-month periods between January 2000 and December 2003, serum samples were obtained from 1,319 Korean children who presented with respiratory symptoms, and were examined for antibodies to M. pneumoniae using the indirect particle agglutination test. Geometric mean antibody titers peaked in the second half of 2000 and then decreased gradually, a second peak occurred in the second half of 2003. Likewise, the frequency of high antibody titers (≥1:640) also peaked during these two periods. Antibody titers in children aged 0-3 yr were lower than in older children during both peak periods and for 2 yr after the first peak. Sex and atopy had no effect on antibody titers. During the years 2000-2003, geometric mean antibody titers and the frequencies of high antibody titers varied with time. These changes suggest a cyclic pattern of M. pneumoniae infection, with two epidemic peaks separated by 3 yr

PreCam, a Precursor Observational Campaign for Calibration of the Dark Energy Survey

PreCam, a precursor observational campaign supporting the Dark Energy Survey (DES), is designed to produce a photometric and astrometric catalog of nearly a hundred thousand standard stars within the DES footprint, while the PreCam instrument also serves as a prototype testbed for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam)'s hardware and software. This catalog represents a potential 100-fold increase in Southern Hemisphere photometric standard stars, and therefore will be an important component in the calibration of the Dark Energy Survey. We provide details on the PreCam instrument's design, construction and testing, as well as results from a subset of the 51 nights of PreCam survey observations on the University of Michigan Department of Astronomy's Curtis-Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. We briefly describe the preliminary data processing pipeline that has been developed for PreCam data and the preliminary results of the instrument performance, as well as astrometry and photometry of a sample of stars previously included in other southern sky surveys.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, submitted to PAS

Multi-wavelength observations of blazar AO 0235+164 in the 2008-2009 flaring state

The blazar AO 0235+164 (z = 0.94) has been one of the most active objects observed by Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) since its launch in Summer 2008. In addition to the continuous coverage by Fermi, contemporaneous observations were carried out from the radio to γ-ray bands between 2008 September and 2009 February. In this paper, we summarize the rich multi-wavelength data collected during the campaign (including F-GAMMA, GASP-WEBT, Kanata, OVRO, RXTE, SMARTS, Swift, and other instruments), examine the cross-correlation between the light curves measured in the different energy bands, and interpret the resulting spectral energy distributions in the context of well-known blazar emission models. We find that the γ-ray activity is well correlated with a series of near-IR/optical flares, accompanied by an increase in the optical polarization degree. On the other hand, the X-ray light curve shows a distinct 20 day high state of unusually soft spectrum, which does not match the extrapolation of the optical/UV synchrotron spectrum. We tentatively interpret this feature as the bulk Compton emission by cold electrons contained in the jet, which requires an accretion disk corona with an effective covering factor of 19% at a distance of 100 R g. We model the broadband spectra with a leptonic model with external radiation dominated by the infrared emission from the dusty torus. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved

Twardziel jako przyczyna duszności krtaniowej

Wstęp Twardziel to rzadko występująca choroba zakaźna wywoływana pałeczkami Klebsiella rhinoscleromatis. W jej przebiegu dochodzi do powstawania twardych nacieków zapalnych w obrębie nosa, gardła, krtani, tchawicy i oskrzeli. Zmiany te mogą prowadzić do krytycznego zwężenia światła dróg oddechowych skutkującego niewydolnością oddechową.  Opis przypadku: 77-letnia pacjentka została przyjęta w maju 2014 r. do szpitala z powodu ostrej duszności krtaniowej. Na podstawie analizy obrazu chorobowego oraz wywiadu środowiskowego wysunięto hipotezę występowania u  pacjentki przewlekłej infekcji pałeczką twardzieli. Badania histologiczne wycinków z  nosa wykazały obecność piankowatych histiocytów oraz komórek plazmatycznych charakterystycznych dla obrazu twardzieli. W  próbkach surowicy, uzyskanych czterokrotnie od pacjentki w przebiegu choroby, stwierdzono podwyższony poziom przeciwciał klasy IgA i IgG swoistych dla antygenów K. rhinoscleromatis. Wnioski: W  diagnostyce ostrej duszności krtaniowej u  osób ze współistniejącymi zmianami zanikowymi błony śluzowej nosa oraz z obecnością twardych nacieków zapalnych w górnych drogach oddechowych, należy uwzględnić badania w kierunku twardziel